


i like (the idea of) you

by imgoingtocrash



Series: Pepperony Week 2019 [6]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 80s/90s vibes, AU, Alternate Universe - College/University, Banter, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, MIT Student Tony and Harvard Student Pepper, Pepperony Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 01:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: “You know, for a supposed billionaire genius, you’re kind of tragic,” Pepper states, her hip eased against the table that Tony is currently taking over in the middle of Widner Library on a Friday night. He has a mix of thick textbooks with incredibly long titles and an unhealthy amount of disposable coffee cups.This should be a normal circumstance: just a student burning the midnight oil and a fellow student poking fun before marching on to their own set of coursework. Instead, it’s Virginia Potts—Student Library Assistant and Harvard School of Business attendee—bothering Tony Stark—MIT Student, generally kind of a pain in Pepper’s ass.After meeting at a party, Pepper Potts and Tony Stark sort of become friends, which includes a lot of bickering, flirting, and maybe feeling more for each other than either of them are letting on.





	i like (the idea of) you

**Author's Note:**

> [drumroll] This fic was inspired by: [this fanart](https://imgoingtocrash.tumblr.com/post/185155288359/wanted-to-draw-college-pepperony), [this post](https://agentrandom.tumblr.com/post/184783656977/this-tony-with-this-pepper), and [this tweet](https://twitter.com/bestofpepperony/status/1141867663750291456). (Though I obviously took some liberties. I just want to set the vibe for y’all, mentally.) Also, [this photoset](https://imgoingtocrash.tumblr.com/post/186393113724/euteamo3000-pepperony-multiverse-2-90s) that was made after I wrote this fic, but before I posted it. It’s perfectly suited to this fic and idk how it happened, but I love it.
> 
> Title from the song _I Like (the idea of) You_ by Tessa Violet. She’s a super sweet emerging artist, and this is the song that made me go “okay but…what if college au!tony and pepper?” so you have it to thank as well. (Also the MV is pretty retro, which fits with the vague ~80s/90s~ vibe of this fic.)
> 
> Enjoy, and have a wonderful end to Pepperony Week!

“You know, for a supposed billionaire genius, you’re kind of tragic,” Pepper states, her hip eased against the table that Tony is currently taking over in the middle of Widner Library on a Friday night. He has a mix of thick textbooks with incredibly long titles and an unhealthy amount of disposable coffee cups.

This should be a normal circumstance: just a student burning the midnight oil and a fellow student poking fun before marching on to their own set of coursework. Instead, it’s Virginia Potts—Student Library Assistant and Harvard School of Business attendee—bothering Tony Stark—MIT Student, generally kind of a pain in Pepper’s ass.

Because, if it wasn’t clear enough: Tony doesn’t _attend_ Harvard University. He has a very obnoxious motorcycle that he rides between the MIT and Harvard campus often. Specifically, he comes over to an entirely different school just to bother Pepper on nights like this, when she has plenty of other things she could be doing. (Except that the library is generally pretty empty on Friday nights unless exams are approaching, so she’s usually just reading her own books or doing homework if not distracted by Tony. Still. Other things than indulging him.)

Maybe that wasn’t his intention whenever he’d started coming to the Widner Library, but since the day he found out that she’s working as a student library assistant to help pay off her student loans, he’s been pretty obvious about gaining her attention when she’s supposed to be re-shelving books.

To her quip, Tony replies, “Is that so, Miss Potts?” without looking up from his notes. Pepper pushes herself more firmly onto the table as if it’s simply a high chair, craning her neck a little to read his notes. His notes are a mess, despite his loopy, curling script that speaks of practice, eloquence, and possibly penmanship lessons as a child. The headline to this particular page is _AI Theory_, though it has expanded onto a couple more pages, separated by less doodles in the margins than she would expect from someone like him.

Pepper rolls her eyes. Calling her by her last name makes her sound so old and matronly, but he hasn’t dropped it since she’d been caught in a moment of surprise (and of being just a little tipsy, a little too starstruck at seeing a man who’d appeared in a few issues of _Tiger Beat_ when she was younger) and she’d blurted out a polite “Mister Stark!” at him the first time they met. Now he’s made it into an inside joke between them, like how he calls his best friend James Rhodes pet names as if they’re an old married couple.

“Most people would assume Tony Stark does something very different with his Friday nights.”

“You’re not most people,” Tony states, as if it’s a simple fact, like an element on the periodic table or the tenth digit of pi. He finally looks up at her, his left hand brushing the outside of her thigh. In her so far limited experience, Tony Stark is rarely anything like what most people consider him to be. She’s under no illusions: he parties as hard as anyone, has flings that rave about his prowess in bed to anyone in Massachusetts that happens to be listening.

The Tony she now knows is a few degrees away from that, too, though, and that’s what confuses her. His reputation for being a cad that leaves lovers alone in his room when it’s over directly contrasts with his kindness. She’s seen him help nervous freshman, overworked and tired librarians, and even, at one point, a support animal separated from its owner on the opposite side of campus. 

After they met at that party, Pepper had pretty quickly rebuffed his sexual advances. She’d expected more resistance—a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer in his professional or personal life. Instead, he struck up a conversation with her about stocks. _In the middle of a house party._ It hits her, sometimes, how much she really _likes_ him despite constantly complaining about him.

“Though, if you’re interested, I’m sure we wouldn’t be the first couple to christen these stacks…”

And then he says things like that. She stops his hand where it starts to trail up to her ass. She refuses to think that his smile at being caught is incredibly cute, lazily framed by his stubble. In fact, this look he often sports in the everyday—worn flannel shirts, graphic tees, holy jeans—clashes with the social status of a man who could buy himself more fitting, fashionable pre-ripped jeans for hundreds at the local mall. Frankly, if he’d just listen to her about how impressions matter in the real world…well, he’d likely clean up well in a suit, that’s all she’s saying.

“Ha,” she remarks, deadpan, dropping his hand to the table with a hard _thud_, the action a complete opposite to her internal thoughts. “What I meant was that some girls on my floor were raving about a frat party somewhere near MIT. You know, the campus where you presumably actually do attend classes?”

“Harvard has a school of Science and Math too, Pep,” Tony says, which doesn’t excuse or explain the fact that he still isn’t a student in said school, but he follows that up with a shrug. “Better library selection than ours.” Which actually does make some amount of sense, except for the fact that she knows that’s not why he’s become a library regular. According to Rhodes, he has an off-campus apartment. Though she hasn’t ever seen it, it sounds like the ideal place to study were he not apparently constantly hosting ragers there or setting science experiments on fire whenever the mood strikes him. Much better than her dorm room, at least, considering her noisy suite-mates.

Tony punctuates his statement with a few quick taps to the open book in front of him. She doesn’t understand some of the technical terminology—programming is certainly the future, but she’s not getting into it herself. The section he’s currently on is highlighting Alan Turing’s criteria to test artificial intelligence against humanity, each step underlined in—wait a second, did he…?

“Tony!” she growls, wrenching the book from Tony’s hand when he goes all wide-eyed. “Did you write in this library book?!”

“I needed to!” he asserts. “These tests won’t work for something more complex. Every single one of these guys is thinking too small! I had to make eliminations!”

“Oh my god,” she groans, catching herself when she realizes it’s too noisy for the library, only to see no one else around them. Right. Empty library. Still, marking up the books instead of just making his own notes…

“I’m sorry?” he tries, pinching his expression.

“No, you’re not,” she says, scrunched eyebrows knowing. She flicks through the rest of the ruined text. Thankfully it’s not one of the more popular volumes, as evidenced by the thick layer of dust that coats the page edges. She’ll probably be able to issue for a replacement without anyone asking questions about what happened to the original book. (That is, if he doesn’t come back and ruin that one too.)

“Eh,” he admits, leaning his chair back on two legs. “Buy you dinner to make up for it?”

She eyes him for a moment, squinting and searching for sincerity. His wire-rimmed glasses, rarely used but probably more needed for reading than he’ll admit, are hanging from the neck of his shirt. As he’s in his kicked back chair, he fiddles with his pen, slapping it on his knee rhythmically like a drumstick.

“Just burgers and beer, nothing fancy, I swear.” Otherwise, to say: not like a date, which suits her just fine.

“I want a martini,” she announces, slapping the book shut in his face. The dust makes him sneeze a little. She laughs when his nose wrinkles at her. “And ice cream, from that place on Broadway.”

“You’re the boss,” he says, leaving his table with its mess of books, fully aware that she or one of the other library assistants will have to pick it up later. His notes become a wad somewhere deep in his backpack, lost until the next time she asks to borrow a pen and he remembers they exist.

xx

“Pepper—Hey, Pepper! Open up, Potts, this is important!”

The knocking at her dorm room door is pretty frantic. And too loud for the quiet hours listed outside the entrance to their dorm hall. Instead of immediately reacting, Pepper tries the act that sometimes works at the library desk: ignoring. She re-reads the sentence on her worksheet about the importance of an organized budget.

The knocks continue. “I know you’re in there, Pep, I already checked the library!” Tony says, as if she has no sort of life outside of that, and is available simply because he requests it. (Okay, so maybe that’s true, in some ways. She gets along with most of the other girls on her floor, but it’s nothing too deep, just a lot of party invites and trying to make the right connections together. Tony’s really one of the only people she knows outside of her pretty small friend circle and list of classmate acquaintances.)

Her roommate, Anna, is here and she’s looking at Pepper, concerned. _Sadly, I know it’s for me_, Pepper mentally admits. She heaves a sigh, slapping her spiral closed over the worksheet before padding to the door.

Tony almost slams his fist into her face when she finally opens the door. She glares at his sheepish, apologetic grin before dragging him into the room and shutting the door. “You’re going to get us in trouble with the RA if you keep at it.”

“Quiet hours,” Tony snorts. “Our freshman dorm was a non-stop party palace. You learned to sleep through other people’s shit or you didn’t sleep.”

“You say other people, but I know you mean you.”

“Oh, lighten up, Pep, you like a good party as much as I do.”

“If that’s why you’re here, I disrespectfully decline.”

“Miss Potts, I never!”

“This isn’t your apartment, Tony, you can’t just come in here and disturb—“

At that moment, Pepper remembers that Anna’s in the room. Anna’s face is frozen, lips slightly parted and eyes moving between Pepper and Tony as if they’d been having a tennis match in front of her and she couldn’t decide who was winning.

“Anna, I’m so sorry about him—“

“No, I’m sorry about her, if she’d just answered the door like a normal human being—“

“Tony—“

“Wait, wait,” Anna interrupts, waving her hands at them. She turns to Pepper. “_This_ is your friend Tony?”

Tony’s smile is gleeful. Pepper knows his reply before he opens his mouth. “Pepper talks about me a lot, huh?”

“Get out of my room,” Pepper commands, but Tony and Anna are already shaking hands, clearly getting acquainted.

“Tony, as in…Tony Stark?” Anna asks, voice going a little higher than its normal range, her toes almost curling into the material where she’s barefoot on their purple shag rug. Anna’s pretty, and kind, and she likes the party scene and the gossip mill just as much as she loves studying for her degree in criminal law. Pepper’s sure between some amount of those factors, the two will get along just fine.

“That’s me,” Tony replies, shaking Anna’s hand. Pepper thinks that this is it—he’s going to forget whatever he came for in the name of trying to have sex with her roommate, and she’s going to end up in the student lounge on a couch for the night.

Instead, Tony says “If you’ll excuse me,” and drags Pepper back out of her own bedroom and into the hall by the arm.

“What the hell?!” Pepper whisper-yells, very aware of her nosey suite-mates just one door away.

“I had to tell you first: I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“My AI! I figured out how to—well, I’ll need to build the components first, really, but the code is solid, and the learning algorithm, holy shit, Pep, I’m a genius.”

“The learning—AI—Tony, how much have you smoked tonight?” She sniffs the air around him, finding no trace of marijuana, but a familiar odor of pine-scented cologne mixed with whiskey. So, no drugs, but—“How many drinks?”

“Pepper,” Tony says, hands going to her shoulders, barely covered by the tank top she’s wearing with her pajama pants. “I’m serious, this technology, it’s—this is something the guys at IBM would have wet dreams about, and—I’m making my own artificial intelligence, Pepper. It’s not just theoretical anymore!”

Pepper is, by no means, a technology expert. She’s learned a little bit of typing because of required classes, and spreadsheet making on a PC isn’t too bad, but anything more complex—the idea of an entire intelligent being created from all of those ones and zeroes…sometimes she forgets how truly smart Tony Stark is.

It’s a bold move—especially considering she’s wearing only the loose tank top—but she hugs him in response, curling her arms around his neck. His hair, when she brushes against a few wisps with her fingers, is soft. Curlier than she thought, for some reason.

At first, she thinks she’s made the wrong move, because Tony doesn’t react. Then, as if finally waking, he pulls her harder against his body, almost swinging her around in the tight confines of her dorm hallway with a whoop of excitement, making her laugh when he almost throws both of them against the door across from her own.

That finally gets the RA’s attention. Pepper hears the door opening from around the corner. Pepper detangles herself, still slightly caged in Tony’s arms when she slaps at him a little. “Go, go, now, get out of here before—“

“Yeah, yeah,” he assures, separating from her and taking a few steps away. Then he turns back, giving her a look she can’t completely discern other than to call it warm. He retraces those few steps and gives her another quick squeeze of a hug, as if he’s having to steal it, as if he couldn’t get enough the first time. Pepper slams her own door open and quietly latches it shut just as her RA’s footsteps round the corner.

Anna’s face shows that she’s already filled with questions, but Pepper simply opens back up her homework and tries to cool the sudden warmth of her face.

xx

“Well, well, well,” a male voice says behind her. A very familiar, _grating_ voice. “What do we have here?”

“I’m doing my laundry, Tony.” Pepper punctuates the statement. “In peace.” She shakes her head, finally turning to the basement’s laundry room door with a note of disbelief in her voice. “How did you even find me down here?”

“A little birdie told me,” he deflects.

“You flirted with Anna, didn’t you?”

Tony shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Since when are you and Anna—no, you know what, I don’t want to know. As long as I’m not in the room, do what you want.” She flings a pair of sweatpants into the washer with a little force. It’s not that she’s angry, just—the fact that Anna would fall for that whole act Tony does when he’s flirting with someone after all of the dumb stories Pepper has told her roommate about him. The fact that her friend Tony just also happens to be _the_ Tony Stark shouldn’t change anything.

“No need to be jealous, Miss Potts. I’m all yours, according to your other friends.” His smile is incredibly smug. Her suite-mates watch way too much reality television. To think that she and Tony are actually together just because he came to see her a few weeks ago? Please.

“That is not—they’re just confused. Don’t…take it to heart, or anything.” At that she’d say his expression almost deflates, but he covers up whatever his face was showing by jumping on top of the washer next to the one she’s currently sorting her colors into.

“You got me, Pep. I’m just in it for a peek at your delicates.” She slaps his hand when it inches toward the open washer.

“You’ll get a peek at the dryer when I shove you inside.”

At this point, she and Tony are both smiling. They enjoy fussing at each other far too much, sometimes.

“You’re in a mood, huh?”

“It’s almost like I was doing something by myself and I didn’t need your company.”

“No, seriously, Pepper, what’s up?” he asks, pulling a leg onto the dryer and swinging the other. He’s being sincere, which makes it worse.

“I…it’s stupid. Just, normal stuff.” The truth is, she doesn’t want to admit the truth. It wouldn’t be that embarrassing except for the fact that it’s Tony she’d be telling it to.

“I’m normal. I like normal stuff.”

“You are absolutely not normal, Mister Stark,” she reminds, emphasizing his name and why she called him that in the first place. A kid genius turned teen heartthrob with a long legacy to live up to who’s currently working on his Masters degree. She’s just trying to finish her undergraduate studies. She doesn’t even know if she wants to become a grad student, let alone if she’ll ever be able to because—

“I’m still a decent ear.”

“You do like to hear yourself talk.”

“_Pepper_,” he half-whines, shaking her shoulder a few times. Most people probably would have dropped it by now, but most people don’t invent artificial intelligences for fun or stalk the engineering and mathematics sections of the library of a school they don’t attend, either.

“I failed a test, okay? It was a basic, gen-ed math test, and I still don’t know what the hell happened, so I’m going to ruin my GPA and fail this class, are you happy?” She punctuates the question with the slap of the top of the washer, aggressively setting it to run by punching the start button.

For a moment, Tony doesn’t say anything. Pepper stares at her feet, crosses her arms, and listens to her clothes grow wet inside the washing machine.

“When you say you don’t know what happened…?”

“I’m good at math, Tony,” she states, with no amount of exaggeration. She helped her parents do budgeting in high school. She was the only one of them who never missed a decimal. Their taxes were called a work of art by their accountant. She was in business because she could understand numbers—they made sense, had an order. “Geometry is different. Algebra was easy—solving for variables. This is degrees and vertices and whatever the hell else they’ve decided to throw in for fun.”

“Pythagorean’s Theorem is kind of both.”

“Wow. Thank you. That’s very helpful. God, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, look, it’s not—I’ve failed classes before. Who hasn’t?”

“I haven’t, and I don’t want to! I need this to graduate. Besides, you only fail because according to Jim, you skip class and use up all of your absences. It’s not…going to a party and forgetting about the homework or—or studying really hard and screwing it up anyway. You’re different.”

“If you even think of saying I’m perfect, you’ll realize how ridiculous it would sound coming from you, specifically,” he says, a bit bitter. He’s right, she didn’t exactly mean to imply he had it easy, but he does have quite a bit of privilege in comparison to a lot of other students. She’s sure the sway of Howard Stark could and has gotten him past quite a bit of red tape. Still… “Pepper, you know me. Better than Rhodey, sometimes. I’m not—I’m terrible at things other people are great at, like remembering to eat and sleep or not opening my mouth and pissing people off or wearing nice clothes to fancy parties without my mom nagging me like I’m twelve.”

Pepper pushes herself up onto the running washer next to him. She takes his hand. “I know you’re not perfect. I didn’t mean—I’m just frustrated. I wanna, like, borrow your brain for an hour and come out with all of the right answers.”

It feels weird to hold his hand, but not uncomfortable. He has a bandage on one finger that she knows is from a welding accident in the lab, but his skin is warm, he seems to understand the gesture for the apology that it is.

“You know there’s a simpler answer to this problem, right?”

She takes a beat, trying to follow him before she eventually catches up. “_No_.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No, Tony! We can’t sit in the same room for more than ten minutes without bickering. How am I supposed to learn from you?”

“We don’t fight _all_ the time. We talk.”

“You’re literally arguing with me about if we’re arguing right now.”

“Pepper, I know my shit! I can teach you.”

“I want you to remember that I once watched you try to calculate exact change in your head before giving up and giving the bookstore cashier a five hundred dollar bill that he wasn’t authorized to accept because they stopped printing them in _1969_.”

“You’re really just a steel trap of all my mistakes, aren’t you?”

“If you can’t be bothered to do, you can’t be trusted to teach.”

“Do as I say, not as I do?”

“Tony.”

“Pepper.”

“This is a terrible idea.”

xx

The fact that Tony Stark is escorting Pepper out of a party—that he’s been insisting she go home for the past hour—is ridiculous. Where does Mister Day-Drinker get off, telling her to quit when she’s having a good time?

“You’re the one who told me to stop you! You literally said ‘Do not let me get wasted before this midterm’ and here you are, wasted on a Tuesday!” Tony says. Apparently she said that out loud. God, who knew he could nag?

Okay, so maybe she felt like blowing off some steam before this stupid geometry test. And maybe the punch was very, very good, and the good luck shots from Anna and her other girlfriends just kept on flowing. She’s not plastered. She’s very aware, right now. She doesn’t need Tony to be holding her up right now. She could walk.

“Say the alphabet backwards, then,” Tony demands.

“I couldn’t do that sober, dummy.”

“You’re a mean drunk.”

“I’m not,” she whines. Oh, Jesus, she doesn’t usually whine, does she? Maybe she is drunk. “I’m so much fun, Tony! Look at my dress! It’s so blue! It’s a fun dress.”

“Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it—“ Tony mumbles, herding her across the street to where his car is presumably parked. That’s right, she caught a ride with her friends with the expectation that he’d take her home after, because he promised he would.

Except… “Where’d you get the car?”

“Rhodey. And if you puke in it, you owe him, not me. I said no damages and no tickets.”

“M’not gonna puke.”

“You’re slurring.”

“Only a little!”

Tony rolls his eyes, but walks her to the side of the car, plopping her ungracefully into the passenger’s seat. She really isn’t that drunk, and she’s not going to puke. Probably. Plus, she knows the smoothie place around the corner from her dorm makes an excellent hangover cure. She’ll be _fine_.

“You’re a cute drunk, I’ll give you that,” Tony says, when they’re on campus. She doesn’t really remember much about the drive except for the blurring scenery and trying to convince Tony to stop at Burger King with the claim that it would sober her up poorly disguising that she’s just hungry. Now, he’s standing outside of the car door, arms crossed, but seemingly smiling despite himself.

“Aww, Tony, you think I’m cute?” She leans into his side when he helps her out of the car. A little too heavily, by how the world spins a little before readjusting around her.

“God, your heels make you so tall, Pep.” Tony dodges the question. At his remark, she removes the heels, leaning on him and managing not to fall over out of habit of putting them on and taking them off. The tile of her dorm building’s main floor is cold against her bare feet. “That’s not what I—no, you know what, fine.”

“You liiiiike me,” Pepper singsongs, leaning into Tony further. Her breath is warm against his neck. She smells the vodka on her breath mixed in with his cologne. He’s definitely in kissing distance, and looking very disheveled and kissable. She groans at herself. To think that, she must be drunk. “I think I’m drunk, Tony.”

“Oh, so you’ve joined the rest of the class, great, good for you.”

“M’sorry,” she mumbles, head on his shoulder while they wait for the elevator. She lives on the third floor, which is dumb, because the elevator always takes forever.

“Don’t—it’s fine, Potts. It’s nothing.” His arm is a comforting weight around her waist, and his thumbs are moving and tapping impatiently against her ribs. She turns into him, making their awkward little hold into a full-on hug. He freezes up a little at first, but his other arm wraps around her, lulling her half into sleep as the elevator continues its decent.

She thinks she feels his lips press against her hair, but she’s tipsy at the least, and it makes her blush, even if it’s just her imagination.

When the elevator finally arrives, they disentangle, dodging the group of other students that flows from the doors, off to get dinner or drinks or to go to the same party they just left, perhaps.

The ride up is silent, though Tony stays close as if he’s still wary she’ll puke or fall over if he doesn’t hover.

“Is Anna home?” he asks.

“Prob’ly not. She finished midterms early. She told me she was celebrating. I wanna be done with midterms, Tony. We should celebrate when I’m done.”

“Sure thing, Pep. We’re at the finish line, I promise,” he comments, leading her down the hall. Thankfully without her shoes she’s a little more stable, and definitely walking more quietly.

“I want a pizza party, but with lots of liquor. At your place.”

“Why?”

“Because pizza parties are for adults too, Tony.”

“I meant why would you want to go to my place?” he clarifies, digging through her clutch for her room key. He doesn’t even blush at the very obvious tampon, which makes her oddly proud.

Pepper shrugs, half onto her bed before she actually answers. “Because you’ve never invited me. We’ve been studying together for months—we’ve known each other for so long now, and you never ask me over!”

“That’s because it’s boring,” Tony says. He lifts up her legs and tucks her under the covers, still in her makeup and party dress. “But if that’s what you want, I’m expecting an A plus performance tomorrow. No whining about your hangover, answers to all of my questions while we study.”

She gives him a thumbs up with her face shoved into the pillow, and he laughs a little. When she looks up again, he’s throwing her shoes at the foot of the twin bed, and her clutch onto her desk.

“I’m coming over at noon. Test is at four. If you aren’t awake I will get your ass up in a way that Sober Pepper will not appreciate.”

“Mmm. Good night, Mister Stark,” she hums, snuggling deeper into her pillow.

“Good night, Pepper,” he replies. She hears as he walks the few steps across the room before turning out her room light and shutting the door behind himself.

xx

“So, how’d we do?” Tony asks, standing outside the door of her classroom with a large cup of coffee in hand.

“You’re aware _I’m_ the one who just sat through a test for an hour still nursing a hangover, right?”

“Ah, ah. No bitching about the hangover, remember? Also, I’m invested in this now, Potts. So, c’mon.”

She bites her lip, smiling at his anticipation. It’s actually really sweet, that he cares so much, and that he’s been helping her. “I think it went well.”

Loudly, he shouts “That’s glowing praise in the Book of Potts! Ladies and gentlemen, someone’s getting a boozy pizza party!”

He picks her up, juggling his coffee cup while spinning her around a little and attracting the attention of a couple of other students milling around outside of her classroom, as well as her professor.

“Nope,” she says, slapping his arm, feeling nauseous and also pretty embarrassed. “Too soon.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” He puts her down. “Still. My place. This weekend. All midterms completed, spring break starting.”

There’s a groan off to their left, announcing James Rhodes approaching. “Pepper, please tell me you’re not encouraging him to have more parties. I’ve spent all week studying. I have to sleep, man!” He’s only partially kidding. She and Jim only really talk because of their connection to Tony, but they get along well enough, especially when they get together specifically to spill their Tony-related woes or lord them over Tony’s head as blackmail.

“Oh, I’m sorry, grandpa, I’ll make sure to leave _Andy Griffith_ on to go with your nightly glass of prune juice,” Tony teases.

“You need to learn to respect your elders,” Rhodes says, and that’s all the warning he gives before pulling Tony’s shorter form under his arm and going for a noogie. They wrestle a little more before shoving each other away with big grins on their faces.

“A small get-together, then,” Pepper amends, once they’ve both seemingly gotten their brotherly behavior out of their systems. Rhodey’s eyebrow raises. “Seriously, just a few people. My invites only. Alcohol and pizza and maybe we’ll rent a movie or something. It’ll be fun.” She jostles Rhodey’s shoulder. “Though I kill at _Jeopardy_ if that’s more your speed, gramps.”

Rhodey groans. “I hate both of you. I don’t want to come to your party. You’re banned from the apartment. Tony can share your shitty twin bed instead of his king mattress and the bitching will be your punishment, Potts.”

Tony’s face goes a little smarmy. “Oh no, sharing a small bed with a beautiful woman, what ever will I do, honey bear?”

“How about I take the king and Tony sleeps alone in the twin?” Pepper suggests, smile poised. 

Tony’s expression falls into something far less amused. “Is this you two ganging up on me? Is that what this is? Because I don’t like it.”

xx

“Chug it!”

“No.”

“Come on, Party Girl Potts, work with me here.”

“Who told you about that?”

“About what? That you can shotgun a beer without spilling a drop on yourself like the elegant queen you are?”

“Compliments won’t help you. I’m not doing it.”

“Do it or you’re fired.”

“I don’t work for you.”

“One day you will, Potts. You’ll be successful as shit, and I’ll poach you from some company that isn’t worth your fancy Harvard degree, and then I will fire you because of this exact moment.”

“I don’t want to work for you. You annoy me.”

“Pepper.”

“Tony.”

“Oh my god, you guys are ridiculous,” Rhodey groans, breaking the silence. “I’m done. I’m going to bed.”

“Aww, come on platypus, you’re the only one left!”

“Exactly. Congrats on the test, Potts. Don’t let Tony keep you up too late.”

“Rhodey! Man—“

“Goodnight, Jim,” Pepper says, her tone firm. He’s right—the rest of Pepper’s friends and partygoers left hours ago after the movie they rented finished. It’s three in the morning and Pepper has to pack in a few days for her trip home to visit her parents for spring break. Her dad has been talking non-stop about his excitement at having her back home and all of the things he’s done to the house now that he’s only working part-time.

Tony throws himself back into his living room couch with a flop and a sigh, his arm touching hers with particular emphasis. “Party pooper.”

Pepper makes a noise of indignation. “Excuse you, I believe that I’m the one who suggested popping the champagne. There was dancing on your bed, at one point, if I recall.”

“Yes, but you weren’t one of the ones doing it. I would have remembered that. I would have joined you. Also, this is like, barely tipsy for me. It’s nothing. Scarcely buzzed.”

“That’s because you’re an alcoholic, Tony.”

“It’s called having a high alcohol _tolerance_, Potts. There’s a difference.”

“Uh-huh.”

There’s a moment of relaxed silence—Pepper’s feet are on the coffee table, bereft of her heels in favor of being barefoot and comfortable. It’s been a good night, all things considered. A little crazy and more party than the casual hangout she’d promised until they’d settled enough to watch the movie. Still, Rhodey promised he was having fun and not bothered, especially when her suite-mates started flirting with him.

Tony has been particularly dedicated to giving her the best night possible. It’s very sweet. It makes Pepper wonder, exactly, why. It’s (probably) not physical attraction or the eventual possibility of sex—she’d shut that down early on. (And she definitely doesn’t dream about the brush of his stubble against her skin, the determination of his gaze on her in the dark—nope, not at all.) 

She supposes it’s the same reason she likes him—the arguing, the teasing…it’s comfortable, a rhythm she falls into with Tony and only Tony. It’s turned into whole conversations about their futures and their pasts and everyone involved in their lives up to this point.

It’s two people simply enjoying each other, even the ugly parts. (She might even, if under great duress and far away from Tony himself, admit that if Tony asked her out, she might, maybe, if he wasn’t being an ass about it, say yes.)

“I can hear you thinking over there,” Tony says, waving his hand in front of her face. He’d apparently gotten up to get her a glass of water. It’s cold and just sobering enough to get her out of her mental daze. Of thinking about Tony, about wondering…

“Just tired.” She shrugs. It’s not entirely true, but it’s true enough. It’s been a long and fun night, and she wants it to end with possibly sleeping in until ten.

“You can stay the night,” Tony says, waving away her initial look. “I’m serious. Just take the couch.”

“And here Jim offered me your perfectly good king-sized bed. Chivalry is dead.”

“Okay, I’ll join you, since you clearly don’t want me a whole room away…”

“Goodnight, Mister Stark.”

“That’s more like it.”

xx

Pepper wakes to the sound of knocking. She doesn’t entirely awaken, actually. She drowsily recognizes the sound, shoves the borrowed pillow from Tony over her head, and groans when it continues.

She hears Tony laugh, his voice a little rough from sleep. “So you get up at six in the morning on weekdays as a form of self-torture, then, not because you actually enjoy it. Noted.”

“You don’t ever sleep, so you’re always up at six in the morning, and you get coffee with me like three times a week, so shut up.”

“You hit hard, Pep,” Tony says, his inflection flat. “Seriously, I’m—“

Tony, for once in his life, is quiet, and that makes Pepper rise from the couch and look over the back despite her slight hangover. An older man is at the door. She’d say it’s his father but for the fact that history books across the world show pictures of Howard Stark, and this man is far too tall, and his hair betrays that he’s a little older than Tony’s father probably is.

“Jarvis,” Tony says, surprised and slightly suspicious. According to Tony, his family never really visits him at college. His father hadn’t even bothered to show up on time for the ceremony when Tony received his Bachelor’s degree.

“It’s good to see you too, young sir,” Jarvis replies, accent crisp, but she senses he means the words, knowing of Tony’s fondness for him.

“No, I mean—of course, yeah, but—why are you here?”

“Your parents have requested to see you. I’m afraid your father still insists your Masters degree isn’t required, therefore Mister Stane shouldn’t be taking your place at the company until you finish. They’ve asked me to announce their arrival. Your mother desires to stay in your guest room, if possible.” Jarvis coughs, then, looking to Pepper. “I wasn’t aware you had…_company_, young sir.”

She and Tony blanch at the same time, realizing Jarvis’ implication and stuttering over each other. “She’s not—“

“We didn’t—“

“This is—she’s—Pepper—“

“There was a party, I fell asleep on the couch—“

“She’s just leaving! She’s leaving right now, off she goes.”

“Yeah, I have to, um, pack.”

“Pack?” Tony finally moves on from trying to kick her out, which is kind of rude even though they didn’t actually sleep together last night.

“I’m going home, you know, for the break.”

“Oh.” Tony has a strange look on his face. Almost disappointed. Like maybe he’d thought she was staying and—maybe like he’s going to miss her, even just for a week.

“Very nice to meet you, Miss Potts,” Jarvis says, moving their conversation along despite she and Tony sorting out their own stuff in-between.

“Nice to meet you.” Pepper finally gets off the couch, dodging empty plastic cups of now-flat champagne and a pizza box that somehow ended up on the floor to shake Jarvis’ hand. “Seriously, Tony’s told me so much about you.”

“And I about you,” Jarvis replies.

Pepper starts, eerily reminded of Tony’s first meeting with Anna. “What, seriously?” She turns to Tony, but his nervous energy at trying to kick her out seems to return, knocking the playful air out of her.

“Yes, I sing your praises all the time to the folks back home, you’re great Pep, now it’s time to run along, don’t want to miss your flight, see you later.”

“I’m not leaving until Monday.” She crosses her arms and plants her bare feet a little harder on the carpet.

“Still, knowing you, that packing thing is down to a science.”

“Tony—“

“And picking which heels to bring from your collection? That’ll take a whole twelve hours, minimum, so off you go—“

“Tony,” she says more forcefully, a little sad. She gets that he doesn’t have the best relationship with his parents, but she can tell he’s trying to make sure she doesn’t cross paths with them at all costs. It stings just enough to make her hurt. Is he embarrassed of her? Are they not as close as she’d thought?

Seeming to read her mind, he shakes his head. “No, Pepper, it’s not you, it’s—“

“Oh, really? It’s not you, it’s my parents?” she grumbles the response, shoving her heels on and digging around in the mess of last night’s party for her purse. “You know Tony, I thought we were actual friends, or whatever we are, but I introduce you to all my friends and you can barely agree to let me come over to your place—“

“Pepper, hey, come on, that’s not—“

“If you being nice to me was just a ploy so I would sleep with you, I swear to god—“

“That’s the whole point!” Tony shouts, grabbing for her arm and pulling her towards him. He looks genuinely afraid that she’s going to walk out the door if he lets go. “It’s not—I’m not embarrassed of you or some other childish shit, Pepper! I don’t want them to think—“ He sighs. She can feel him practically shaking. “I like you, Pepper. Even maybe close to the other L word, like, and I have for a while now, and I don’t want them to see you as just some…random person I slept with or something. Okay?”

He likes her. Tony Stark, infamous MIT playboy millionaire, likes her. Maybe even loves her. They’ve known each other for all this time, almost a whole year, and he’s—he was flirting sure, but he _likes_ her? It seems impossible.

But she thinks of all the gentle touches, the things they share only with each other, that she knows him better than Rhodey, in some ways. She sometimes catches his gaze already on her before she looks over. She’s wondered a few times if he was going to kiss her. She’s thought multiple times that she might like it if he did. 

She’s been dismissing those thoughts for so long, now, because the idea that he’d like her back…it always seemed foolish. She always thought it was just a dumb, childish notion that would get her heart broken if she acknowledged it. The fact that he likes her that way, that he apparently has liked her for some time, and that he does want her to meet his parents, like it’s an eventuality, not just a possibility…

“Don’t be mad at me, please,” Tony half-begs, looking all across her face for a reaction. “Seriously, are you mad? You look mad. Are you gonna hit me, or—“

Pepper kisses Tony. She covers his hand where it touches her arm, and she takes the two steps closer to him, and she kisses him. In her heels she’s a little taller, so she doesn’t have to get on her toes or angle herself to touch his lips. They simply come together in one smooth motion, his lips dry, his minty breath mixing with her morning breath in a way that should be more unpleasant than it is.

They break apart for a moment, both of them breathing a little hard and staring at each other.

“Weird?”

“No,” she replies. It should be, because it’s Tony, but in that same vein, it’s not, because it’s Tony, and they’re as in tune at kissing as they are at anything else. “Not weird. Good.”

“Yeah. Yeah, good, that’s—really good, Pep, holy crap.”

She laughs at his face—dumbstruck, full of awe, like he’s never been happier with a kiss in his life, and she leans in again, using an arm behind his neck to bring him along to meet her lips again.

“Jesus Christ,” comes a voice from behind them. They break away and see Rhodey, the door to his room open and his shirtless upper half poking out. “You two are so loud. And now I have to see this shit in my own home? On a Saturday morning? God, I’m gonna puke.”

Pepper and Tony both roll their eyes at the same time.

Jarvis coughs, reminding them all of his presence. “Sorry to interrupt, young sir, but I believe your parents will be arriving shortly. If you would like to escort Miss Potts out before they arrive, I believe now is your chance.”

“Yeah, I—goddamn _shit_, Pepper, you’re seriously gonna leave after something like _that_?”

“Yes, my plan to go home for break is actually a conspiracy against you, specifically.”

“Ooo, playing spies. Kinky.” He’s definitely braver, now, his hand firmly rubbing up and down her back.

“Tony,” Pepper warns, though she’s smiling.

“Oh my god, they’re worse now,” Rhodey groans to himself.

“Goodbye, Rhodey,” Pepper calls, laughing when Rhodey yells at her use of Tony’s moniker as she walks toward the door. “I’ll see you after the break, Tony.”

Tony keeps hold of Pepper’s hand, escorting her out the door past Jarvis and also trying to make her stay. “I’m gonna call, you know. I have resources. I’ll get your parents’ number. Make you wish you never left, that’s how much I’m going to call.”

Pepper shakes her head. “By resources, you mean you know how to use a phone book. Or you’ll make poor Jarvis do it.” Jarvis gives her a smile that she thinks confirms the latter. “Two calls. Maybe three. No more.”

“Sure thing, Miss Potts,” Tony agrees, though her expectation of him following through is less than confident.

“I’ll see you when I get back, Mister Stark,” she hums into another kiss, Tony clearly reluctant to let go, and her just as reluctant of wanting him to. “And we can talk about…all of this.”

“We’re gonna do so many things with our mouths,” Tony half-growls against her lips, making her laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know the exact future of this AU, but I think the two options can be: something similar to canon but they're dating sooner or it’s a happier one where Tony’s parents live, Obadiah never tries to kill Tony, and Tony ends up leading the company into technology instead of weapons naturally once he is in a position to do something about it with Pepper at his side. 
> 
> Either way both would follow the idea this fic was written on and inspired by: Tony and Pepper meet earlier in their lives and end up inspiring each other and changing each other for the better. (Side note: I have this picture in my head of Tony coming to visit Pepper after he graduates with his Master’s and starts working at SI and he’s all in a suit and looking sharp and Pepper is SO VISIBLY HERE FOR IT that Tony steps up his style game except he definitely doesn’t throw away any of his band tees, and Pepper would never want him to. He also buys her first pair of designer heels for her first post-college job interview.)
> 
> Also, yes, that kiss at the end definitely echoes their IM2 kiss, because I love the energy of that scene. (They were screaming at each other exactly one minute ago. They’ve been friends forever. Is it weird? It’s not, right? Of course not, because the reason they’re great together romantically is because they were friends first. Also, here’s Rhodey, and he’s disgusted by their cuteness despite lowkey shipping them.)
> 
> This is the end of Pepperony Week! So bittersweet. Thanks so much for reading this story. If you enjoyed it, check out my other works and leave some love! I worked super hard to write for these two and fill these prompts, because I love Tony and Pepper so damn much and felt like I wanted a bunch of fics where I got to put that love front and center instead of making it a background element. (And also because I’m the writing epitome of extra. I always go way over for prompts and stuff.)
> 
> I hope this AU was a great end to the week for all of you like it was for me! xoxo


End file.
